 |
| |
|
|
Berzerker
|
 |
topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:25
|
|
Kid, are you going to answer or keep changing the subject? You accused lots of people of immorality and you won't even try to support your slander. That isn't nice. 
quote:
Say we legalized drugs. Save for you crackheads, we all know that the result would be more drug addicion |
You keep saying that and when we disagree you ask for proof. So we give you historical and contemporary examples as our proof and you dismiss the proof by saying those people are different. So where's your proof to support your arguments? You're treating your speculation or dogma as more valuable than the evidence we've offered.
quote:
more crackheads who don't feed their children - more people who don't show up for work, get fired and become homeless - more people stoned out of their mind 24/7, etc. How can that not be immoral? |
Maybe it is, but you just said drug use is not immoral so are you backtracking? And you didn't explain why it is immoral for you to sell me a bag of pot. You're changing the issue AGAIN by doing what I just said was immoral - blaming one group of people for the actions of another group. White racists employ the same tactic always pointing to the worst members of a very large group of people to demonise the entire group. You want to punish millions of people because a crackhead did something bad. And you advocate this in the name of morality?  
quote:
You want to do it for your freedom. |
I don't use crack.
quote:
You want others to suffer for what you call freedom. How can that not be immoral? |
They suffer by their own hand, Kid. I could just as easily argue that using cars is immoral by pointing to people who use them for car bombs. That's the essence of your argument, blame millions for the actions of a few and ignore the fact that the pathologies we see are not just a result of drug use but ILLEGAL drugs.
My "utilitarian" argument is that banning drugs has proven worse than the drugs (users who harm others) themselves and the drug war hasn't solved any problems, it has just added more, many more problems...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kidicious
|
 |
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
My "utilitarian" argument is that banning drugs has proven worse than the drugs (users who harm others) themselves and the drug war hasn't solved any problems, it has just added more, many more problems... |
You can not be free from the cost of others using drugs. You pay one way or the other. Freedom is only one factor in the overall equation. If you legalize drugs there will be more drug addicts, and that imposes a cost on all of us. For example, our economy will do more poorly, because drug addicts will miss work. If you maintain the criminal status of drugs there will be a cost too, but it will be less. And saying that we should allow people to harm themselves just doesn't make any sense. There is no benefit in that for them. Drug addicts can't even decide what's best for themselves because they are sick. Freedom is not the only thing that they want. It isn't the only thing most people want. Libertarians are alone in that regard.
Last edited by Kidicious on 09-02-2005 at 10:21
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Berzerker
|
|
topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:25
|
|
Kid quote:
You can not be free from the cost of others using drugs. You pay one way or the other. |
Kid, listen (read  ) this very closely because your argument is immoral. You are using a generalisation to "justify" hurting people. We don't say murder is immoral because we pay for it one way or another. It is immoral because there is a victim and a perpetrator and that perpetrator committed an immoral act, not the guy down the street who smokes pot. We don't say he is immoral because someone else committed murder. But that is the essence of your argument, you say I should be punished for using or selling a drug because somebody else did something bad to another person.
The moral response is to outlaw doing this bad thing to another person, not punish millions of people who did nothing to the victim. Imagine if we punished people who dont use drugs because some people who dont use drugs commit murder. Hey, lets punish all black people because some black people commit murder. Uh oh, some white people commit murder too, we'll have to punish white people now. Follow your "logic" to its conclusion if you cannot see the immorality of your argument.
As for the costs, do you realize we've squandered over a trillion dollars fighting the current drug war? What did we get for our money? About 3 million people jamming the legal system because you're mad at a crackhead. Higher homicide rates that would have been even higher than under alcohol prohibition if not for modern medicine (check the average over the last 35 years). We're not just throwing wads of money at the government, its being used to expand control over us in all sorts of ways, albeit the new war on terrorism has supplanted drugs as a reason to increase control.
Ever hear of early release programs? This is an attempt to alleviate the jampacked legal system by releasing people before they serve their time. Why? To make room for all the drug "dealers". Plea bargains have also been expanded so we are literally releasing real criminals out onto the streets to make room for pot smokers.
Then there'e the "fact" that prior to 9/11 we were expending a huge chunk of our law enforcement resources chasing drug users when we could have been using those resources to find missing children, stop terrorists, catch rapists and murderers, etc.
quote:
Freedom is only one factor in the overall equation. If you legalize drugs there will be more drug addicts, and that imposes a cost on all of us. |
You keep saying that but you don't back it up with anything even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
quote:
For example, our economy will do more poorly, because drug addicts will miss work. |
No Kid, they'll be fired and replaced with people who aren't addicted just like now. That's how the marketplace restricts certain behaviors. But I see you would rather sacrifice freedom and morality for state production too... Is that fascism or communism, I keep getting them mixed up.
quote:
If you maintain the criminal status of drugs there will be a cost too, but it will be less. |
The Kid of unsupported assertions.
quote:
And saying that we should allow people to harm themselves just doesn't make any sense. There is no benefit in that for them. Drug addicts can't even decide what's best for themselves because they are sick. |
But most drug users are not addicts, Kid. They are innocent of this "crime" you see in addiction and they will be punished anyway. And you don't speak for others, you don't get to decide what I value or what benefits me. Freedom means I get to decide that, not you. Totalitarianism means you get to decide for the rest of us.
quote:
Freedom is not the only thing that they want. It isn't the only thing most people want. Libertarians are alone in that regard. |
Its true many people, even most possibly, want to decide how others live. Just don't complain when the freedoms you cherish are taken away, adding hypocrisy to the injuries you want to inflict on others is like pouring salt in their wounds.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kidicious
|
|
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
Kid
Kid, listen (read ) this very closely because your argument is immoral.
|
Of course it's immoral according to you, because we don't use the same code. In fact, I don't use one code like you do. I use all of them.
quote:
You are using a generalisation to "justify" hurting people. We don't say murder is immoral because we pay for it one way or another. It is immoral because there is a victim and a perpetrator and that perpetrator committed an immoral act, not the guy down the street who smokes pot. We don't say he is immoral because someone else committed murder. But that is the essence of your argument, you say I should be punished for using or selling a drug because somebody else did something bad to another person.
|
You fail to see the connection between the two. When you take drugs you contribute to the problem.
quote:
The moral response is to outlaw doing this bad thing to another person, not punish millions of people who did nothing to the victim. Imagine if we punished people who dont use drugs because some people who dont use drugs commit murder. Hey, lets punish all black people because some black people commit murder. Uh oh, some white people commit murder too, we'll have to punish white people now. Follow your "logic" to its conclusion if you cannot see the immorality of your argument.
|
It's not just senseless punishment. That's what you want to make it out to be. It's because of drug users that drugs are on the street and drug users do all kinds of horrible things.
quote:
As for the costs, do you realize we've squandered over a trillion dollars fighting the current drug war? What did we get for our money? About 3 million people jamming the legal system because you're mad at a crackhead. Higher homicide rates that would have been even higher than under alcohol prohibition if not for modern medicine (check the average over the last 35 years). We're not just throwing wads of money at the government, its being used to expand control over us in all sorts of ways, albeit the new war on terrorism has supplanted drugs as a reason to increase control.
Ever hear of early release programs? This is an attempt to alleviate the jampacked legal system by releasing people before they serve their time. Why? To make room for all the drug "dealers". Plea bargains have also been expanded so we are literally releasing real criminals out onto the streets to make room for pot smokers.
Then there'e the "fact" that prior to 9/11 we were expending a huge chunk of our law enforcement resources chasing drug users when we could have been using those resources to find missing children, stop terrorists, catch rapists and murderers, etc.
|
It's just your opinion that the money was squandered.
quote:
No Kid, they'll be fired and replaced with people who aren't addicted just like now. That's how the marketplace restricts certain behaviors. But I see you would rather sacrifice freedom and morality for state production too... Is that fascism or communism, I keep getting them mixed up.
|
Ever hear of scarce resources? You seem to think that no matter how many people get thrown in prison there will always be someone to sell drugs, and no matter how many people get hooked on drugs there will always be another worker to take their place.
quote:
But most drug users are not addicts, Kid. They are innocent of this "crime" you see in addiction and they will be punished anyway. And you don't speak for others, you don't get to decide what I value or what benefits me. Freedom means I get to decide that, not you. Totalitarianism means you get to decide for the rest of us.
|
I disagree that most users are not addicts. It's very easy to become addicted to drugs, especially to a degree. And you don't know what Totalitarianism is. You call everyone that.
quote:
Its true many people, even most possibly, want to decide how others live. Just don't complain when the freedoms you cherish are taken away, adding hypocrisy to the injuries you want to inflict on others is like pouring salt in their wounds. |
So if we aren't Libertarians we can't complain about losing our freedoms. 
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kidicious
|
|
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
No. Very few people choose not to take drugs simply because they are illegal, as demonstrated by surveys. By far the primary factor is concern for health.
|
Maybe, but there are some people. You admit.
quote:
I doubt that. Some drugs are expensive but it rarely costs more than twenty bucks to get high, and that would be expensive drugs like heroine or cocaine.
Middle drugs like "pills" would more likely cost you 10 bucks to get you high for a night, and inexpensive drugs like weed can come as low as one buck a dose.
Besides, if price is a concern, legalization can also allow price control, something that prohibition doesn't. |
Me personally, I was always afraid to use expensive drugs because I feared getting addicted and having a habit that costed me hundreds of dollars a day. You seem to be talking about only legalizing marijuana. I'm not that opposed to legalizing marijuana, but I still prefer to have it illegal, since other drugs would be illegal anyway.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Oncle Boris
|
 |
Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
Maybe, but there are some people. You admit.
|
IIRC, that number is below 5% of people who don't take drugs. That's close to a survey's margin of error.
quote:
Me personally, I was always afraid to use expensive drugs because I feared getting addicted and having a habit that costed me hundreds of dollars a day. You seem to be talking about only legalizing marijuana. I'm not that opposed to legalizing marijuana, but I still prefer to have it illegal, since other drugs would be illegal anyway. |
It doesn't cost hundreds a day. I'd say maybe 80$.
Besides, if you want another example, take alcohol. In Quebec its sale is regulated and controlled by a state monopoly, except for beer and wine, for which stores need a special permit. Taxes come in at 75% of the total price, i.e. alcohol is about 3-6 times more expensive here than it is in places where it doesn't suffer any special taxes.
For instance a cheap bottle of wine is about $10, a 40-ounces vodka $30, etc. Two points: first, that doesn't make most drugs any more expensive than alcohol. Second: people here buy as much alcohol as anywhere else.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Kidicious
|
|
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Oncle Boris
IIRC, that number is below 5% of people who don't take drugs. That's close to a survey's margin of error.
|
And the price of the drug has something to do with why they do or do not take it either.
quote:
It doesn't cost hundreds a day. I'd say 80$ at worse.
Besides, if you want another example, take alcohol. In Quebec its sale is regulated and controlled by a state monopoly, except for beer and wine, for which stores need a special permit. Taxes come in at 75% of the total price, i.e. alcohol is about 3-6 times more expensive here than it is in places where it doesn't suffer any special taxes.
For instance a cheap bottle of wine is about $10, a 40-ounces vodka $30, etc. Two points: first, that doesn't make most drugs any more expensive than alcohol. Second: people here buy as much alcohol as anywhere else. |
Now alcohol is one thing that I would definitely buy more of if it were cheaper. I'm sorry, but your argument is just a violation of economic principles and common sense.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Berzerker
|
|
topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:25
|
|
Kid quote:
Of course it's immoral according to you, because we don't use the same code. In fact, I don't use one code like you do. I use all of them. |
So which code did you use to "justify" punishing people for the actions of others? Islamic Law? Seriously, why is it moral to punish millions of people for the actions of others? Should people who don't use drugs be punished because some of them do horrible things?
quote:
You fail to see the connection between the two. When you take drugs you contribute to the problem. |
Oh, I see your "connection", its called guilt by association no matter how loose the association. But you ignore this connection when it comes to drugs you like.
quote:
It's not just senseless punishment. That's what you want to make it out to be. It's because of drug users that drugs are on the street and drug users do all kinds of horrible things. |
No Kid, its immoral punishment. The senselessness is in the belief that waging a drug war significantly reduces consumption and violence. Mafia clans used to have shootouts on city streets over marketshare because booze was banned by people who saw a problem and made it worse. Prohibitionists like to tell us alcohol prohibition was repealed because too many people just wanted their booze. That certainly was a factor but many people saw their communities turn into warzones and the increased violence was the opposite effect predicted by the prohibitionists.
quote:
It's just your opinion that the money was squandered. |
Kid, don't ever complain about the way I debate. You do exactly what you accuse me of doing.
quote:
Ever hear of scarce resources? You seem to think that no matter how many people get thrown in prison there will always be someone to sell drugs, and no matter how many people get hooked on drugs there will always be another worker to take their place. |
People are not a scarce resource.
quote:
I disagree that most users are not addicts. It's very easy to become addicted to drugs, especially to a degree. And you don't know what Totalitarianism is. You call everyone that. |
"To a degree" is meaningless Kid and you're changing the context of what you said...again... I'm "addicted" to news talk but that doesn't mean I run around murdering people. You were talking about actual addiction that reveals itself in certain pathologies - severly hurting other people or oneself. This is why you think drug use/selling is immoral. So of the ~80-100 million people who use drugs, how many commit murder? Less than %1? How many rapists? Less than
%1 etc? Add up all these people and how many are there? Less than %10? The vast majority of people who use drugs are not "addicts" - for many its social, for others its habitual. For some its an addiction that qualifies as immoral by your stated definition.
The media gives us the opposite impression because its little more than a propaganda wing of the government and sex and blood sells. How do you think roughly half of Americans came to believe Saddam was behind 9/11? The same reason you think there are addicts everywhere... Oh yeah, I suggest you read the definition of totalitarianism to see if it mirrors your belief system. You want to make our decisions for us and that is called totalitarianism whether you can admit it or not. And stop making stuff up, I rarely use the term totalitarian.
quote:
So if we aren't Libertarians we can't complain about losing our freedoms. |
Sure you can, but not without committing the most vile form of hypocrisy. Griping about losing the freedoms you cherish after taking away the freedoms others cherish stinks to high heaven...
quote:
Now alcohol is one thing that I would definitely buy more of if it were cheaper. |
So you like the booze, huh? Should you be punished because a drunk driver killed someone? Lets see you apply the same standard to yourself.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Oncle Boris
|
|
Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:25
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
Now alcohol is one thing that I would definitely buy more of if it were cheaper. I'm sorry, but your argument is just a violation of economic principles and common sense. |
Your turn. Now YOU explain why people in Quebec don't drink less than those of France, America, Germany.
The problem with your conception is that "economic" principles are not sufficient to explain everything. There comes a point when people just don't want of a thing anymore, whatever its price is.
If Big Macs costed 10 cents, my body wouldn't need more food than it does right now.
Last edited by Oncle Boris on 11-02-2005 at 04:25
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:25.
Apolyton Time is 00:25. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
09-02-2005 03:28
.
|